


This Little War-Piggie

by seashadows



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Birth, F/M, Pigs, Thunderpigs are GO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 20:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4405583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seashadows/pseuds/seashadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months after the Battle of Five Armies, Dáin Ironfoot's favorite pig goes into labor. What's a king to do? </p><p>Why, help, of course!</p><p>Written for Dáin Ironfoot Appreciation Week 2015, day 5 prompt "Battlepig and King."</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Little War-Piggie

**Author's Note:**

> There are some descriptions of pig birth here, but nothing terribly graphic.

It was truly a miracle that Violet hadn’t lost her piglets before now. Dáin had bred her with his finest boar just a week or so before the raven came from his cousin – a fine war-sow like Violet deserved the finest seed for her wee ones – and he hadn’t even been sure that she’d taken with child by then, much less that he should be riding her all the way from the Iron Hills. Even the healthiest pigs would have ended up exhausted, lathered with sweat by the time they reached their destination, on a trip that lengthy. But on the day that they were preparing to leave, as he dressed Snouts in armor for the journey, Violet had nudged him with her flank and dropped her helmet onto his iron foot with a _clang_.

So she had gotten her way, of course, because who could say no to a pig they’d raised by hand? Still and all, Dáin had made her trot at the back of their procession while he rode Snouts, and since Snouts had been shot dead from under him, he was glad. Bad enough that Thorin had died, bad enough that his sister-sons and heirs had been killed by Orc bastards, bad enough that so many of his people had been left either dead or wounded and their mounts along with them. He couldn’t have lost his Violet, too, and survived.

To the side of the throne that he’d never wanted to inherit, Violet had stood beside him the first day he held court. The Dwarrow of Erebor were broken and beaten down, mourning beyond anyone’s capacity to mourn, but when they’d seen their king’s favorite battle-pig protectively standing next to him, they’d laughed. And Dáin knew that he’d always keep her beside him. 

Then, of course, she had turned out to be in pig after all, and king and subjects alike had rejoiced. He had commissioned the old stables, for boar and horse alike, to be cleaned of their century-old calcified dung and inscribed with protective carvings, then filled with sweet straw from the fields south of the Iron Hills to make a nest for her to farrow. Hers would be the first babes born in Erebor after its reclamation, and although she was no Dwarrowdam, Violet was a symbol of hope. 

One that absolutely had to choose the worst possible time to decide to birth her piglets. “Dáin, dear.” Amarra’s voice, her hand shaking his shoulder. “We’ve had a courier. Violet is going to have her babies.”

“Babies?” That woke him up well enough. Dáin jerked upright out of his covers, which even at the best of times were completely insufficient at combatting the mountain cold. His arms prickled up immediately. “Violet’s in farrow?”

“Aye, _kurdul_ , in good – Dáin, put some clothing on!” Amarra exclaimed. “How would it look if the king were down in the stables in his nightshirt?”

“To Elves wi’ what people think,” Dáin grunted, taking an unlit torch from its ring on the stone wall and shoving it into the brazier beside the bed to light it. He’d had more than enough court niceties in the Iron Hills, where court was more of an opportunity for the lord to actually help his people than the posturing that he saw here. These Western courtiers who fainted dead away like wee bampots at the idea that the King was actually a _person_ made him even more fed up. “Violet’s in farrow. I’ve got to help.”

“I’m not objecting t’that, silly sausage.” A rustle of bedclothes signaled that his wife was getting out of bed. “Ach, it’s cold!”

Dáin shrugged. “Then go tae the dams’ springs.”

“Not at this time of night, ridiculous thing,” Amarra said. “At least have something t’eat, and put on some trousers.” She padded to the set of shelves cut into the wall nearest their bed and took a bundle of fabric from one of Dáin’s shelves. “Yer lucky I’m not makin’ ye put on boots.” 

He whirled around, torch in hand. Didn’t she understand that there wasn’t any time to eat? “Violet’s not goin’ tae wait for me t’eat. A sow farrows when she needs it.”

His wife set her square jaw. As he watched, the light of his torch caught her thick black beard and the golden rings she used to hold it together when she slept, lighting the hairs that frizzed between the rings with copper and gold. “I don’t mean a meal. Open wide.” 

“I don’t see wha - _ulk_ -“ Dáin choked on the hard piece of dried meat that she shoved into his open mouth and chewed it up as quickly as he could. “What’s that?”

“Smaug jerky,” said Amarra. “There was a big piece of him sheared off over a buildin’ in Laketown. Waste not, want not, eh? Open.” This time, he was prepared for the dried Smaug. Not bad. Tasted a bit like really gamy goat in a lean year. “An’ chew with yer mouth shut!”

Dáin finished his mouthful _with_ his mouth open, thank you very much. “You’ve been listenin’ to Balin Fundinul,” he grumbled. “I’m not a statue, ‘Marí. Keep your voice down, you’ll wake Thorin.” He’d had to practice saying his son’s name over and over to his tear-stained face in a mirror to avoid breaking down in tears at the thoughts that the name ‘Thorin’ conjured. Now, though, it came out with nary a waver. 

She kissed his cheek, just where his beard met skin as bare as a Dwarf’s ever got. “Thorin’s asleep. You know how lads his age are. Lazy lumps!” Briskly, she patted his bum with the flat of one hand, seemingly ignoring how it made him nearly drop his torch. “Off with ye. Tell Violet I hope she’s got an easy time of it.”

“She’s always had!” Dáin protested. She’d seen him come home from enough farrowings, and heard his tales, to know that Violet was an easy birther. Such a good lassie, never even needed a piglet’s membranes to be broken for her, and she’d whelped a good fifteen piglets over the past decade. 

It was no use arguing with someone who didn’t appreciate his piggies like he did, much as he might love her. Dáin kissed Amarra’s cheek and ran out of the King’s Quarters as fast as he could, trousers and all the respectability associated with them be damned. The royal halls sat nestled in a spiraling catacomb of concealing corridors where a criminal might languish months or years in his attempt to find the royal family, but after walking the halls as many times as he had to check on Violet, Dáin knew them by heart. His bare feet pounded the cold stone floors and his nightshirt flapped about his thighs as he ran.

The stables were already lit with the special oil lamps that Bifur Bolurul had wrought, designed to give off incandescently warm, smokeless light, when Dáin got there. Bifur was there, too, kneeling beside Violet in an outfit of tough leather trousers and an old, stained shirt. “ _Good evening, Your Grace_ ,” he said when Dáin came in. It was, as usual, half-signed and half-spoken in the Old Tongue, his combined language of choice. 

“How’s she doin’, Bifur?” Dáin asked. He got down on his knees next to Bifur and, just as he’d done a thousand times before with farrowing battle-sows, used the pads of his fingers to palpate Violet’s swollen abdomen. She turned her eyes towards him and grunted. “Ach, good piggie. They’ll be here soon, your wee ones, won’t they? Good lass.”

Bifur rolled his palms against Violet’s lower belly. “ _The piglets are turned the correct way_ ,” he said. “ _She should start to birth any moment._ ”

“Ah, that’s good, isn’t it, lass?” Violet had never been in particular danger during the births of her previous litters, but Dáin knew he would sleep more easily knowing that the first babies of Erebor had been born without giving him cause to worry about their _’Amad_ over the next few days. “We’ve got in a good supply of nursing food for her, right?”

“ _Yes_ ,” said Bifur. “ _I mixed the oats and fat myself. She should be well-stocked for at least a fortnight._ ” 

“Thank ye, Bifur,” said Dáin. He knew that this was far beyond the scope of Bifur’s obligations, the western Dwarf having taken severe injuries during the battle for Erebor’s reclamation. But farrowing time could be lonely without another Dwarf by your side, and he wished he could adequately say how grateful he was, in either Westron or Khuzdul. His hands had always been steadier and truer to him than his mouth. 

Violet gave another grunt and shifted further onto her side. Dáin’s hands came into use then as he lifted her tail and gently spread apart her hocks to examine her birthing passage. “No bleedin’,” he announced, “but she’s about t’have the first piglet.”

“ _May I help?_ ” Bifur asked. 

Could he help – what a question, as if he hadn’t thrown himself into learning about piggery above and beyond what was necessary! Violet wouldn’t be nearly as comfortable as she was if not for Bifur, that was certain. “Ye sent someone t’wake me as soon as ye saw aught amiss,” Dáin told him. “Ye could have made me sleep through it. Help all y’like.” He rolled up the sleeves of his nightshirt and tucked them securely above his shoulders. “Only a warning, it’s going t’be messy.”

Bifur did the same with his sleeves, and tied back his beard with a braided string that he pulled out of his trouser pocket. Dáin was glad, not for the first time, that he kept his own beard neatly bound to his face while he slept. “ _I am not afraid of mess_.” 

“Good,” said Dáin, “because she’s started.” He put a steadying hand on Violet’s backside as the first piglet came sliding out, still attached to its mother by its cord. It was the same pinkish-brown as Violet, and covered with a soft down beneath the wetness of its birth that would someday grow into a fine hairy coat. “What a good lassie. You’ve got a fine lad right here.”

The piglet squalled, pushed itself onto its tiny hooves, and waddled to Violet’s side, where it began to suckle immediately. Dáin wished he could touch it, but he didn’t want to risk Violet biting his hand or goring him with her short, sharp-ended tusks. Pig-dams could be as protective as Dwarrowdams when it came to their babes, and for good reason, too. 

“ _Will the others come out so quickly?_ ” Bifur asked, and reached a hand out towards the hungry piglet. 

Dáin grabbed his wrist. “Don’t do that,” he said. Bifur winced. “Did I bruise ye? Sorry, lad, it’s only I don’t want ye to have a bite. Nasty, pig bites are.” Some of the battle boars on the front lines had gone hog-wild, biting Orcs nearly in two; he’d never been more proud, but still, he’d made a point of staying away from those tusks and teeth for a while. Sometimes, the battle-lust could come over pigs as well as Dwarves, and it took a long time to dissipate. 

Bifur nodded vigorously. “ _Suppuration_ ,” he said. “ _Pus_.”

“…exactly.” They were neither of them Healers. Dáin saw no reason to talk about the oozy details unless they had to. “The piglets will come when they will. Should be more’n four of the wee buggers, unless she took ill in the middle of it.” Wouldn’t be terribly surprising if she had. Battles weren’t known for being particularly good for the health. He’d have to watch her to make sure she expelled both her afterbirths on time. “But you can go t’ bed if ye want, Bifur. It could be hours yet.”

“ _No_ ,” said Bifur, and sat back on his heels. “ _This is your pig. I want to make sure she’s kept healthy and happy._ ”

Unbidden tears rose in Dáin’s eyes and choked at his throat. Not a word about how he was Bifur’s king or about how a healthy birth would do Erebor’s morale good, only ‘this is your pig.’ His favorite pet. And she was. “Yer a good Dwarf, Bifur,” he said. They were the only words that would rise past the blockage in his throat. “A fine one.”

“ _I will stay_ ,” Bifur repeated, “ _until all of the little ones are born._ ”

It ended up taking at least two hours, by Dáin’s reckoning, for all of the piglets to slip free of their mother and begin suckling, seven in total. Dáin clipped the cords with ease when both afterbirths came out and patted Violet’s back when she was finished. Two of the piglets had had membranes that needed rupturing, and his arms were filthy up to the elbows. “See, now, easy as ridin’ a pig,” he said softly. “If th’ ‘ _amad’s_ healthy, I mean.”

Bifur sat back on his heels and gazed at the piglets. Dáin could see why, because even for the offspring of a pig as beautiful as Violet, they were just lovely. Two were black like their sire, four were the same pink-brown as Violet, and the smallest one was pink with black dappling all down its back. The runt had taken a few minutes to start walking and breathing properly, but even she had waddled to her mam without too much worry on Dáin’s part. “ _If it is not an imposition_ ,” Bifur began, and then stopped. 

“What?” Dáin said. 

“ _Never mind_.” Bifur looked down at his knees. “ _I apologize_.”

He didn’t have to say it. Dáin knew what was coming, and it was a feeling he felt no one should have to deny. How many pig farrowings had he assisted or done alone now? Had to be upwards of twenty, possibly closer to fifty. For every one, he lost a bit of his heart to the sheer helplessness and heart-melting grunts of the new litter. “You want one, don’t ye?” No one ever got anywhere in life by being coy. 

Bifur’s shoulders slumped forward, as if Dáin had relieved him of the burden of those worrying words that weighed down his head. “ _For the nightmares_ ,” he explained, “ _and the pain in my head. I…I have been told that your Violet serves a similar purpose for you._ ”

“Ah, never worry, Bifur.” Dáin would have clapped him on the shoulder, but he didn’t want to smear Bifur’s shirt with pig fluids. No telling if that shirt meant anything to him. “I don’t mind if ye have one, not at all. Ye helped birth ‘em, aye?”

“ _Not nearly to the extent that you –“_

Dáin shook his head. “No. None of those thoughts, Bifur. I’ve been doin’ this fifty years or more and you’ve just started. You’ll do more the next time. This is yer first, so I’m _givin’_ ye a fookin’ _piglet_.”

Bifur blinked, obviously taken aback. Well, at least he hadn’t fainted. “ _And I will carve toys for your future grandchildren_ ,” he said.

Dáin grinned and held his hand out, and Bifur shook it. “We’ve got a deal,” he said, and stood up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to tell everyone that Erebor’s seven newest members have arrived.” Never mind that it was the middle of the night, or that he would undoubtedly be interrupting people in their competition to make the eighth newest member. Everything could wait, and he knew that the Dwarves of Erebor would be as delighted as he was when they heard the news.


End file.
